[Techtalk] Theory vs. practice (was: Security course)

[Raven, corporate courtesan]

Heya --

Quoth Julie (Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 07:54:13PM -0600):
> Security is fun stuff.  Are people more interested in the "theory"
> part of security or the "I wanna keep the hackers out of my box"
> part?  My forte' is more towards the theory end and less towards
> the practical end.

	It's about a 50/50 split for me.  I vastly prefer understanding
what I'm doing and why, so I need a good theoretical backing.  But I
retain information much better if I put it into practice. It doesn't
seem to matter which one's first; I get the same "Oooooh, *that's* how
it works" either way.

	If I have the luxury of time, usually the theory comes first.
I'm a fan of reading the docs before I try something.  But sometimes
it's "Ooop, need a firewall now, what's that ipchains option?" and I'll
read up on it later.

Cheers,
Raven

"You're some sort of nifty self-created non-categorizable thing.  I 
 don't know what to call you, so I can't curse you."
  -- Louis, regarding vituperation